Celebrating life in the Catholic Church

Israel in the desert (Jesse tree day 11)

After they escaped from the Egyptians, the Israelites travelled through the desert. They didn’t like the desert. They complained – a lot! Moses reminded them that God loved them and had saved them out of Egypt.

To feed them, God sent manna, flakes of light bread that could be picked up from the ground every morning. The people still complained. “We were more comfortable in Egypt,” they said. Finally, they came to a mountain called Sinai. Moses told the people to make a camp. He climbed the mountain to talk to God.

Moses was away for forty days. All that time, he spent on the mountain talking to God. God gave him a special gift – two stone tablets that God had written on. He had written the rules His people need to follow to be good: the Ten Commandments.

Suddenly, God told Moses to go down the mountain at once. The Israelites had made a model of a calf, and they were calling it god. Moses was very angry with the people. God’s very first rule for His people was that they should not make statues or other things and treat them like gods!

But the people looked at Moses, whose face was shining like the sun after spending time with God. The people said they were sorry, and they promised to try to be good. Moses and God forgave them. Moses read the people the rules, and the people said they would obey God.

The people followed Moses, but they didn’t stop complaining. And when they came near to the land God had promised them, they said they didn’t want to live there! God was angry. He said that the people would have to spend forty years wandering in the desert until they could go to their new home. That way, the people who complained would all die of old age, and God would start over again with their children.